


All Souls' Day

by SullustanGin



Series: Corellian Whiskey and Sullustan Gin [8]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: All Souls' Day, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Sex, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Requited Love, Some Humor, Star Wars: The Old Republic - Knights of the Fallen Empire, the irony of Theron telling someone to get a therapist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:02:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27360931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SullustanGin/pseuds/SullustanGin
Summary: Theron might not be in a relationship with a Sith Inquisitor, but his girlfriend has an awful lot of ghosts running around in her head.  Some are easier to pacify than others.
Relationships: Theron Shan/Female Smuggler, Theron Shan/Smuggler
Series: Corellian Whiskey and Sullustan Gin [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1642009
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	All Souls' Day

**Author's Note:**

> All Hallows’ Eve – Halloween, popularly – marks the night before All Hallows’ Day, more commonly known as All Saints’ Day. The Hallows or Saints refer to all souls who have transcended Purgatory and have made it to heaven; these aren’t just the saints canonized by the Catholic Church, but also those regular people who lived good lives and either went straight to Heaven or spent minimal time in Purgatory.
> 
> The day after All Saints’ Day is All Souls’ Day. This day is for all souls that are in Purgatory, waiting for their time of purification to finish. The living also mark this day as a time to pray for souls with uncertain final destinations. 

“You need to go deal with her.” 

Theron looked up from his work to find Koth Vortena looking at him plaintively from the bottom of the short staircase on the far side of the War Room. Theron was always good with names and faces, even though he’d only been on Odessen for two weeks. “Which ‘her’?”

“Your her.”

“You must have me confused with an Imp. I don’t own people.”

Koth, exasperated, climbed the stairs. “The Commander. Captain Corolastor. Eva. You need to go deal with her.”

Theron calmly switched off his screen and gave Koth his full attention. “Why? And why me?”

Koth drew close to Theron and lowered his voice. “Lana may have missed it, but I sure as hell didn’t – you two slinking back into the cantina at 2 AM after being absent from our little party for nearly five hours.”

“Old friends catching up,” Theron said brusquely.

Koth scoffed at him. “Your attention was on her the entire time – you even stopped working for her. In between puking her guts out on my shuttle and being a big damn half-dead hero, she kept reading a letter from someone on a datapad over and over again. I may not have gone to officer school for as long as I should have, and maybe I’m not a spy or a Sith Lord or some underworld goddess. But I’m not a moron. Anyway, you have to talk to her – even if I’m wrong, you got a way with her that nobody else does.” Koth put his hands on his hips defiantly, refusing to be dismissed or take ‘no’ for an answer.

Theron fought back both a glare and a smile at the same time. The glare that would have been aimed at Koth was better aimed at himself; he was a spy. He should have been able to hide his feelings better. Koth had been watching. Lana had been distracted by Koth adequately (still, despite her insistence that ‘it’ was over, whatever ‘it’ was). “You can understand why Lana doesn’t need to hear your suspicions.”

“Yeah.” Koth pointedly looked around the War Room to ensure it remained empty. “She worries about too much already. And I get it -- it was a long time coming for both of you.” Koth’s stance relaxed, as if he was trying to talk to a friend rather than a coworker. “Listen, neither of you gave it away just by how you’re acting now. Captains are just good at watching people -- for the safety of their crew, you know?”

“Oh, I know. She can do the same trick.” 

Even with all the discretion in the world, Theron was cognizant that he couldn’t keep Lana from inevitably finding out that the Odessen operations manager had now spent 11 out of 16 nights on _Virtue’s Thief_ with his girlfriend, who happened to be the leader of the largest galactic resistance movement against the Eternal Empire. 

They loved each other. They’d said it to each other. Nothing was unrequited. That was the part that made Theron want to wear a really stupid smile everywhere he went.

For now, Theron kept that impulse in check, even if Koth could keep silent. “What’s the problem with Eva?”

Koth sighed. “Tora’s been trying to help her fix _Virtue’s Thief_ since she got out of med bay.” Theron held back a scowl at the thought of Eva being run through. He’d seen the scar. “Being mothballed for five years did that museum no favors. It’s not a priority, it’s a private ship, and she got that at first. Anyway, last week or so, Eva’s been increasingly impatient, temper growing shorter with every delay or hold up with fixing the ship. She blew her gasket this morning and threw Tora out of the ship – not literally, just screamed her down the gangplank. Well, you know Tora – antisocial, anti-authoritarian issues and all -- .”

Theron closed his eyes. “She took a swing at her?”

“Oh yeah. That was a mistake. As weak as she still is, Eva’s got a nasty left hook. Then Len got all protective of Tora.”

Theron rubbed his forehead. “How bad is Len?”

Koth didn’t answer immediately. Theron opened his eyes and looked over at Koth, who was very amused. “I love how you didn’t even ask if Eva was ok – you already knew.”

“As her Wookiee said, watching the Captain drop men three times her size never gets old. But that’s probably not good when the Alliance is barely a few months old. I’ll talk to her.”

**

Eva was easy to find. She was poking at the underbelly of the _Thief,_ checking for fluid leaks or the hoses or something of that nature. Theron never proclaimed himself to be an expert on anything mechanical besides a swoop bike, slicing tech, and his own implants. “Hey.”

Eva looked down from her work briefly, the dark eyes flickering in recognition, before immediately getting back to the task at hand. 

Theron took in the sight momentarily before getting any closer. She was wearing an engineer’s jumpsuit over her regular clothes – messy work. The right arm seemed more padded out than the left – she’d smashed Len in the nose with everything she had and probably broke something in her hand and further up her arm. Eva was always a good patient, and he assumed she had checked her arm with the _Thief’s_ med computer. She couldn’t feel it. That was the enduring curse from the carbonite, the numbness in her right arm, from her shoulder blade down to the very tips of her fingers. 

Hadrian Corolastor had taught his daughter to shoot left because he was a southpaw himself. Eva hadn’t expected to use that skill so extensively now as an adult. 

Her expression was pensive. She was fixated on getting her ship repaired. There was something else, however. Theron struggled to place it; he’d only seen it in flashes, never a constant mood. Now it hung about her, unrelenting.

Theron’s brain worked to recall where and when he’d seen that expression before. The rest of him went to work as operations manager. “Captain, there’s business I have to address.”

Mutely, she nodded, pulling her hands out of the guts of her ship and replacing the maintenance panel, her left hand leading the right. It took her two tries to get it placed correctly; she was still awkward and clumsy in these things. Theron did not comment, and Eva did not complain. He did not intervene, and she did not ask for help.

That task done, Eva wordlessly approached Theron on the _Thief_ ’s private dock, activating the gangplank. 

The autumn dusk approached rapidly on Odessen as Theron walked up the gangplank, two steps behind Eva. The computer sang out for its captain as she moved through its halls, reminding her of its unfinished maintenance tasks and cycles. The list had grown shorter over the last two weeks since Theron had arrived with _Virtue’s Thief_. It remained extensive and obnoxiously daunting. 

“Is the lounge sufficient?” Eva finally spoke. She stopped in the middle of the common space of the ship, still in the engineering jumpsuit, and the smudges of dirt and grease were more obvious under the ship lights.

Theron nodded as she squared up a few feet away from him, waiting for the inevitable. She was tired, but she was always tired, no more so than usual. “I don’t remember you ever punching Corso or Akaavi,” he bluntly stated.

Her eyes sparked momentarily when she heard those names, and a bit of life came into her. “You didn’t know Risha and me when we were dumb and 20 years old. We had a few catfights over boys.” 

“You’re not 20 anymore, and this wasn’t over a guy.” Theron crossed his arms in front of his chest.

She smirked up at him. “And you haven’t said I’m not dumb, so you must be annoyed about this.”

“Koth brought it to me. I suspect he doesn’t want it getting around base. Might affect morale. Might worry others. I don’t think you want to be called in for more psych evals.” Theron didn’t have to mention Lana explicitly for Eva to read between the lines. He watched her, a hint of temper flaring up momentarily before dissipating back into whatever mood that –

The connection in Theron’s brain finally made it. Yavin and its now-bittersweet aftertaste -- that Life Day and Guss’s birthday and the present she’d given him, at his request. 

“You’re missing them.”

 _Virtue’s Thief_ wasn’t just Eva’s home. It was her entire _life_. Her parents had lived there, she had been born there. It was also one of the last extant pieces of evidence that Hadrian and Athene had ever existed in the galaxy; they were good smugglers in that nobody knew that they were there. Eva was another. The loss of one or the other was equally devastating. The disrepair of one affected the other.

“Yes.” Eva answered him, honestly. “Did Lana tell you --?”

“That you were mildly disappointed that you’d never been dead? Yeah.” His voice was harsher than he’d intended; the thought of her dead had destroyed him for the better part of two years. The revelation that she was alive meant the next three years were spent in a self-imposed purgation so he wouldn’t fail at ‘them’ again. 

He regretted his tone the second he saw her eyes close up in that snake-like fashion. The eyes went flat and unreadable, a practice perfected by years at the gambling tables and the alter ego of the Voidhound. Theron had hoped that creature had died in the course of five years. Eva, when weak, couldn’t be that way. As she gained strength, so did the Voidhound and the masterwork of control. “I was with them when Valkorion wasn’t rattling around in my skull. I was home, safe. Or so I thought.” 

“Don’t hide from me now.”

Eva blinked and then realized what she’d done, instinctively. The cold look disappeared, and she was vulnerable and so damn sad.

Theron pressed forward, taking a step in toward her. “Eva, I’m trying to understand. You miss your parents, intensely. I saw the holo vids from when you were a kid – I get it. I especially get it that your brain put you back there whenever _he_ was trying to break you. Psychological coping mechanism, we’re taught it in SIS and how to see it in victim interviews.” A small chill ran up his spine as he thought of his worst days breaking sentient trafficking rings. Theron’s hands found their way to her shoulders, and she looked up at him. “I get the ship being not right and it bothering you – I saw you while the _Thief_ was being fixed over Yavin. But you’re not the type to swing at subordinates. You shame them, make them look like kriffing idiots – not this. 

Eva hesitated and looked off to the side. She started to try to speak, but the words didn’t come right away. She tried again and succeeded. “I failed. I have failed six years now. I had to be somewhere. I won’t make it. Not even by my birthday, and that’s the latest I’ve been.”

Theron’s brain went to work. The date. The correlation to her mood. When – where did she have to be? This time of year – before her birthday. 

Before her 17th –

Theron had a rather vivid flashback to his old apartment on Coruscant, poring over her file, trying to see if he could catch her and talk to her about his op on Korriban. Was there anywhere she or the ship was always seen, at a set time of the year? 

He hadn’t found it. But that didn’t mean it hadn’t existed. 

“What are you supposed to do for them?” Theron asked her quietly. 

“You’re gonna want that psych eval. Let’s not discuss this.” Eva used her left hand to try to remove his hand from her right shoulder. He didn’t release her. Eva tried twice more before giving up. “Let me go.” 

“Nope, already told you I’m not doing that again,” he gently teased her. 

Eva gave a withering look before using both hands to try to lift his hand off her. Then she really gave up. “Show-off.” The insult was blunted considerably by the upturn of her lip corners.

Theron sighed, silently asking her. 

Still smiling with her mouth and looking so sad with her eyes, Eva gave him the answer. “I fly out to a certain debris field in Imp space that’s now been drifting for …. 14 years. _Thief_ needs to be in top condition or else I can’t get through to the Imp space. I can’t turn off her major systems and let her drift unless everything is just right. Otherwise I risk joining them. I listen to the captain’s log for that night. I replay it to remind myself that I survived it.”

Theron’s mouth opened slightly in shock, and she continued, unwavering. “Nothing should compare to your parents getting spaced and you hearing it. After that, everything should be easy to cope with. Even Darmas Pollaran. Even unwanted ghosts in my head.” 

Eva’s eyes lowered to some point in the middle of Theron’s chest. “As for the wanted ghosts in my head, I talk to them. Tell them how I am. I have no idea if this does anything. But just in case – I was always told it was a terrifying thing to not know where your child was, which is why they didn’t let me wander far when we were planetside.” Eva returned her gaze to his face, eyes glassy. “They haven’t heard from their child in six years, since before Rishi.”

Theron pulled her into his embrace. He had no idea what it was like to be someone’s child, but he knew what it was like to be frantic, searching for someone who might or might not be dead. He also knew that she’d felt both loved and guilty that he had chosen to do that. “First, I think they’d understand you not making it the last five years and this one too. Second, I think you should talk to a therapist.” The second the words exited Theron’s mouth, he cringed, hard. “That probably wasn’t the most sympathetic response.”

Muffled by his chest, he heard her pipe up, “That would have been a hypocritical response, considering the source. But then you did go, so now you got one up on me.”

“You’ll go?”

“No. I just won’t hit our people anymore, even if they start it.” Theron rolled his eyes and firmly tugged her back so he could look at her. Eva met his stare, eyes glinting in the lounge lights. “It’s not over. Until we have eviction, anything I say can and probably will be used against me. Shrinks dig deeper. I don’t trust him to respect doctor patient confidentiality.” 

Theron studied her face, realizing that the smudges of the ship’s grease dirt were now gone from her and likely on him. He really needed to start keeping spare shirts over here. “And he already knew about your parents, the ship, everything?”

“Who do you think is his jailer? Who do you think turns out the lights on him when he gets too loud and rowdy?”

 _The wanted ghosts_ , Theron answered internally. 

His girl had _issues_. This was profoundly ironic coming from him, but as she’d said, he’d done his time. 

Professionally, he still had to do something. Theron refocused on the task at hand. “As ops manager, I have to advise you to apologize to Len and Tora. I also have to advise you that you shouldn’t use Odessen resources to repair your personal ship after this incident. Manpower, parts, you have to do it yourself, unless you receive gifts or voluntarily contributions of off-duty time.” 

Unprofessionally, Theron then brushed his lips across her forehead. “I just happen to have no life outside of my job. And I also happen to have new intel that may brighten your mood.”

Eva tilted her head to listen, curious. She liked the sound of that.

“Port Nowhere has started to pop in and out of visibility in space. Engine signatures and everything. But it’s here and gone. Like –” Theron sighed, frustrating at the lack of alternative description. “Like a ghost ship from those sky pirate novels you introduced me to.” 

He’d read through her entire collection. Twice.

Eva’s face was momentarily blank before becoming pensive, then relieved. “Trick.”

“It’s a trick?”

“No, it’s a kid. Big kid.” Eva pushed past him to head outside. “Well, if you’ve found Port Nowhere, the only way she’s going to let anyone approach is if she sees the _Thief_ and hears me. How long has she been blinking in and out like this?”

Theron shrugged. “Reports say years, since Eternal Fleet swept into the Core Worlds. But the behavior of the ship is so bizarre – I don’t know if the reports are reliable. Could just be lore.”

“No, it’s entirely consistent. Fear –” Eva stopped herself. “I’ll explain later. For now, I want to keep working on my ship.” She activated the gangplank and impatiently waited for it to drop down.

Theron followed her. “For your parents.”

“Nah, they’re dead. Who cares. People on Port Nowhere are alive. They just took priority.” Her voice was suddenly lively and bright, as if she could pull an all-nighter so she could go chase a ghost ship.

Yes, that sounded entirely consistent with Captain Eva Corolastor when all was well in her universe.

Koth was loitering at the edge of the bridge that crossed to _Virtue’s Thief._ Eva didn’t stop as she walked off the gangplank and straight toward him. Theron had to strain to hear her, but he thought he caught everything with the amplification factor of his implants. “Koth. Sorry about Len and Tora. I’ll go do this in person too if they –”

Koth was shaking his head. “Nah, they don’t need an apology. Honestly, they don’t want one. They’re more worried than anything, plus you’ve given both of them fodder to rag on each other for the next six months, getting their asses kicked by someone who probably isn’t properly thawed yet.” 

“So it’s over?”

“Yeah, it’s over. Just buy them a couple of drinks, and maybe if someone gets too full of themselves, you lay ‘em out flat.”

“Bowie never got tired of me doing that sort of thing. It made him giggle.”

Theron arrived at her side. “Much like explosives, big things come in small packages.” 

Koth gave them both a grin at that.

Eva returned the smile, and then let the smile become something a little more mischievous. “So, given the fact you went to Theron first -- who won the pool?”

Koth averted his eyes. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

Eva rolled her eyes. “Don’t bullshit me, Vortena, every captain knows whether there’s a betting pool on certain blessed events occurring.” Eva raised her chin slightly over at Theron, and he immediately realized the implication. Who –

Koth guiltily pulled out a datapad to sort through to find the pool winner, which Theron openly gaped at. “If it makes you feel better, it was just about how fast she’d hook up with someone on base – she was really private about you….assuming it was you before--?”

Theron and Eva said in unison, “Yes.”

Koth smiled. “That’s cute.” He said it sincerely. "Cantina night?" Eva nodded. “Well, looks like Tora won that one. She predicted, and I quote, ‘if she doesn’t fuck the borg for returning her ship, I will.’”

Theron closed his eyes and went as red as his jacket. Eva laughed. 

Despite the fat lip, Tora had a pretty good week after all. 

**Author's Note:**

> I woke up this morning with this rattling around my head, and I just wrote it quickly. It also helped that I posted the first chapter of the Rishi multi-chapter fic, and it starts with the last time Eva went to her parents (which is mentioned here). So yeah, just something I needed to exorcise promptly to fit the day. Hope you enjoyed.


End file.
